An electrophoretic display (EPD) is a non-emissive device based on the electrophoresis phenomenon of charged pigment particles suspended in a solvent. The display usually comprises two plates with electrodes placed opposing each other, separated by using spacers. One of the electrodes is usually transparent. A suspension composed of a colored solvent and charged pigment particles is enclosed between the two plates. When a voltage difference is imposed between the two electrodes, the pigment particles migrate to one side and then either the color of the pigment or the color of the solvent can be seen according to the polarity of the voltage difference.
In order to obtain a desired image, driving waveforms are required for an electrophoretic display. A driving waveform consists of a series of voltages applied to a pixel to allow migration of the pigment particles in the electrophoretic fluid. For an image of 600×800 pixels, there is a tremendous amount of image data and waveforms that need to be processed in a given time period. While the images are being constantly updated, in the method currently used, the central processing unit of a computer must wait until an image update is completed before the display controller can receive additional image data. This method has the disadvantage of delaying processing the image data, thus causing slow-down of the entire system.